Double Agent (2 page)

She didn’t move. The woman who had killed Christophe had probably used some kind of fast-acting poison that closed the airways and stopped the heart. Easy enough to get, and who cared if it showed up in an autopsy? The guy wasn’t any less dead.

Her red dress had been too much like Sabine’s. And that wasn’t the only similarity. There was only one logical conclusion.

“I killed him.”

TWO

“T
hat woman. She was... It was supposed to look like I did it. Multiple people saw Christophe and me talking at the bar in that restaurant. People would have seen that woman come up here with him. We have the same build. The same long, dark hair. The same red dress.” Sabine blinked. “Who knew I’d be here?”

Understanding washed over his features. “We still have to go. More so if you’re going to be the number one suspect.”

Her breath came faster and faster, and she pressed her fists to the sides of her face. She was going to be framed for this. Sabine stumbled back; her ankle rolled. She hit the floor and cried out.

Doug hauled her to her feet. “We have to go.”

“Please.” She didn’t know what she was asking for.

“You want to stay here with the dead guy?” He half held, half carried her down the hall. “We need to get gone.”

Her brain spun until she was hardly able to string two thoughts together. She saw her handler, Neil, at the park under a Saturday-morning sun briefing her on the mission. “She made it look like I killed him.”

Doug glanced at her, still pulling her along. “Sabine.” His voice was a warning.

She forced away the pain in her ankle to keep up with him. Behind them there was a shout, followed by the rush of feet. Sabine looked back as two men in suits broke into a run.

“Time to go,” Doug said.

They sprinted for the exit. Adrenaline pulsed through her. It cleared her mind. Sabine found her own steam and pulled away from him. Doug grabbed her hand again as they closed the distance to the stairwell; he punched open the door and pulled her up instead of down.

“What are you doing? We should go to the lobby. The exit.”

He didn’t slow, just took each flight of stairs at a punishing pace. Every step shot fire from her twisted ankle up her leg.

“Less talking. More running.”

A door slammed below. Dress shoes pounded up the stairwell. The echo bounced off the walls.

“We should split up,” she said.

Doug’s hand tightened on hers. They rounded the landing on the next floor and continued up. “California, get us out of here.”

Sweat ran down her back. Sabine pushed through the strain in her muscles and concentrated on each step. Behind them the two goons raced up the stairs.

“Copy that.” Doug yanked her arm and changed direction. Sabine hissed with the pain and trailed him through a door into a hallway where rooms stretched out before them on either side. Doug jerked her again, opened a door that said Maintenance and swept her inside.

The door clicked closed, and they were enveloped in darkness yet again. All she could hear was heavy breathing, though Doug didn’t seem to be nearly as winded as she was. It was barely a second before the stairwell door opened.

“Where’d they go?” The voice spoke in Italian.

Sabine held her breath. Christophe was Italian. These were probably the bodyguards Daddy had assigned to him.

A different voice replied, also in Italian. “You search this floor. I’ll take the stairs again. Call me if you find them.”

The two men dispersed.

Sabine exhaled. “Let’s get out of here.”

Doug held up one finger, but Sabine wasn’t in the mood to be told what to do. He must have seen it on her face because, before she could move, he was between her and the door.

He moved his face an inch from hers and kept his voice low. “Now isn’t the time for showmanship.”

Everything she’d just seen through the crack in the closet door came back in a rush. The woman had put something in Christophe’s drink that made him fall to the floor.

“If this gets out, it’ll end my career,” she whispered.

Doug shifted. “Quiet.”

Where was the Doug who’d been in the hotel room, the one who looked at her with kindness and compassion? Where was the man who had stood by her at her brother’s graveside? This guy was the army Special Ops soldier with the permanent callus between his thumb and index finger on his gun hand. Mr. Team Leader was clearly used to giving orders that were obeyed without question.

Sabine had never been good at being told what to do. “So this is your big escape plan, huh? Hiding in a closet?”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. In the darkness of the tiny room, frustration came off him in waves. “Copy that, California.”

Doug eased the door open and glanced both ways. Sabine took a step to follow. Her ankle gave out and she collapsed, biting back what she really wanted to say. Her right ankle was swollen around the straps of her shoe.

Doug crouched and unbuckled both of them. He lifted her swollen foot and winced. “You need a bandage. Probably some crutches.”

She couldn’t let herself get distracted by the kindness in his voice. It was normally deep, almost melodic in tone, and she liked listening to him shout instructions when the guys played their extremely intense version of touch football. Now she knew that when he spoke softly in that low voice, it chased away the shivers.

“What I need is to get off the floor.”

His mouth thinned, but he helped her up.

Sabine swung her purse on her shoulder and cleared the door so he could close it. “What floor is this?”

“Twelve.”

No way was she going to hobble down multiple flights of stairs. She turned and limped for the elevator, not caring if he followed or not. Honest. “My room is only two floors down. I can see myself there. Thanks for your help.”

“I don’t think so.” He kept pace with her, glancing around. “Copy that, California.” He zeroed in on Sabine. “Perkins says you don’t have a room.”

She smirked. “Amateurs.”

“Excuse me?”

They reached the elevators. When Doug didn’t press the button, Sabine reached for it herself. “I bet he checked for me under my real name.”

“You have another one that we don’t know about?”

She smiled. “The things you don’t know about me could fill the whole internet.”

He folded his arms. “Evidently. For starters, how a professional...whatever you are...manages to be surprised when someone assassinates a target. I thought you guys were all about offing the bad guy.”

The whole thing hit way too close to home. Seeing someone killed, despite the difference in circumstances. Well, it didn’t matter. Witnessing someone’s last breath wasn’t something she could forget.

Sabine drew on the only thing she had left: bravado. “Do they teach stereotyping to all army soldiers, or is that just your thing?”

She stepped into the empty elevator and winced at the pain in her foot. That was the only reason she had tears in her eyes. The disappointment on Doug’s face didn’t have anything to do with it. Who cared what he thought of her, anyway?

“I’m sorry.”

She whipped around. “Don’t.”

“Sabine—”

The elevator doors opened, and they both stayed silent while he walked her to her room. When the door didn’t close behind her, she whirled as fast as her ankle would let her. Doug stood there, scanning the room she’d reserved. Of course he’d waltzed in right behind her. Probably thought he was going to personally escort her all the way home.

She looked around at the budget accommodations. It was a far cry from Christophe’s suite, but she didn’t care what it looked like. This was the room that brought her within reach of the man who was the money behind Ben’s death—the man who likely knew who was responsible.

She had to know who’d fired the rifle from that rooftop. She had to know why Ben was gone. Otherwise, what was the point? But how could she find out what had happened when the biggest lead was dead? Not to mention that her retribution plan was now pointless.

She wanted to pray there was something on the hard drive that would point to who had killed Ben, but her emotions were too messed up to deal with the issue of faith just then.

There had to be evidence on there they could use, otherwise all of her investigation into classified government files, running down leads, the days of work she’d put in—everything leading up to this mission—would have been for nothing. And Sabine would be left with only the empty feeling of not being able to make sense of anything.

Doug closed the door with him on the wrong side of it. “We shouldn’t stay here too long. Christophe’s bodyguards might get lucky and figure out where you’re staying.”

“The two guys who chased us? Please. I’ve seen smarter sponges.”

Sabine dug through her suitcase for her first-aid kit. She located an elastic bandage, sat on the edge of the bed and started to wrap her ankle. Sharp pain sliced through her foot, and she ducked her head to blow out a breath through pursed lips.

Masculine fingers covered hers. The distinction between his almond-colored skin and her olive-toned flesh made it all the more clear to her that they had little common ground. The loving family he came from was worlds away from her dingy two-bedroom childhood home where everything had gone wrong.

“Let me.”

She looked up. The warmth of his fingers on hers registered, along with the look in his eye. Her throat thickened, and she forced herself to nod.

While he made quick work of the bandage, Sabine felt her heart stretch and come awake for the first time. That had never happened any of the other times she’d met Doug—
MacArthur,
as the guys called him. The simple name suited his steady and uncomplicated nature.

At the few backyard barbecues for the team and their families that she’d attended, Sabine had always felt like an outsider. She’d been attracted to Doug, but any time they had talked he steered the conversation through small talk and never lingered for long.

He clearly didn’t feel anything special for her. That was when she began to make excuses to her brother and say she had to work—which wasn’t a lie. Now that Ben was dead, she wished she hadn’t made him look at her that way or feel sorry for her.

Sabine cleared her throat. “So why are you guys here?”

“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here first?”

“You tell me, and I’ll tell you. Otherwise I have nothing to say.” It was juvenile, but she wasn’t in the mood for a heart-to-heart. Her ankle hurt like nobody’s business. Not to mention the weight of a man’s life was now on her shoulders.

She didn’t know what the recourse of all this would be. No doubt there’d be some kind of investigation into Christophe’s death. When her name came up, she hoped she had the strength to stand up for herself. Not to mention that there would be enough evidence to prove it wasn’t her who had murdered him.

Doug rubbed his eyes. Was he frustrated this wasn’t turning out like he had planned? Good. Immediately she wanted to take that thought back. Despite the imposing size of him, he did look sort of lost.

Sabine had enough to deal with without letting him distract her from her job, so she ignored him. She had the hard drive. It really was time to go before someone identified her. After dumping everything into the rolling carry-on she traveled with, she slipped her feet into silver flats, put her sunglasses on top of her head and turned to the door.

Doug grabbed her elbow, but she kept going. After a tug of war in which she lost her sunglasses and found herself sitting on the desk chair, she finally acknowledged him. He towered over her, his hands on the armrests.

Sabine lifted her chin. “Make this fast. I have a plane to catch.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Sabine almost swooned with the vulnerability in his tone. Almost. “I don’t think so.”

“Sabine, this is serious. Right now, where you go, I go. That’s how it has to be.”

“Why?”

“You’re seriously asking me that? We have to figure out what just happened. You want to find Ben’s killer? Well, so do I. If we pool our resources together, we have the best chance of that. So we’re going to meet up with my team, and you’re going to tell me what you’re doing here, what you want with that hard drive you hid in your purse and whatever else you know.”

She smirked. He thought she was going to spill everything just like that? Yep, amateurs. “Answers, answers. Let’s see. Life...the universe...and forty-seven.”

“Funny.” He wasn’t laughing. “I think you know something. Maybe it’s a small thing...or maybe you’re the key to all of this.”

She sighed. “Am I supposed to know what on earth you’re talking about?” He should know how it was. They both lived their lives under the radar. That was the whole point of being a spy. He was Special Forces. They only told the people closest to them what they did.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Sabine glared. “Even if I could help you, there’s no way I would give you even one second of my time. You were there when my brother died—”

“I can’t talk to you about that. It’s classified.”

“Look, MacArthur—”

“Doug.”

Sabine rolled her eyes. “The only thing I care about is bringing whoever killed Ben to justice. Whatever association you and I might’ve had has now ended. Unless you care to share what happened that night.”

The muscle at the corner of his eye twitched. “You need my help if you’re going to get out of this hotel without getting questioned for Christophe’s death.”

“You said yourself we don’t have much time before those two guys find us, or someone raises the alarm about Christophe being dead and the whole place swarms with cops.”

He held out his hand. “Let’s go then.”

She brushed it aside and stood. “This is where we part. It’s been an experience, really. But like I said, I have a plane to catch.”

“Look, I know how hard this must be for you.”

Was he serious? “You have no idea—”

“Let me finish.” He had the decency to look apologetic. “Please. I can help you put this to rest, but I have to know how you fit in.”

“You think I had something to do with Ben’s death?” She forced the words past a resurgence of the complete and utter desperate, aching solitude that had followed her brother’s death. To her horror, a slice of her private grief tracked its way down her cheek.

She swiped away the moisture and shoved past him.

“Try seeing this from my perspective, Sabine. The team is shadowing the man who paid for your brother to be executed—”

“Executed—” The word was a whisper from her mouth.